Harrys Abstinenz von Drogen und Alkohol

Harry Hole’s abstinence from drugs and alcohol is less a single, unbroken rule than a changing strategy for managing alcoholism and the urge to escape through intoxication. At first, he turns to opium to avoid drinking and tries to contain its use through strict self-monitoring; later, in Hong Kong, he describes avoiding both substances as the secret behind his sobriety. The distinction matters: his account shows discipline, but also the unstable boundary between abstinence and substitution.

The rule and its purpose

When asked why he uses opium, Harry explains that he does so to avoid drinking and identifies himself as an alcoholic. The admission makes the drug’s role explicit: it is not presented as a cure, but as an alternative he considers less dangerous than alcohol. He also notes that Hong Kong’s penalties for drugs are less severe than Manila’s and its prisons cleaner, placing his personal strategy in the practical context of the places where he has lived.

At a later point, Harry’s thoughts return to the need for an alternative to alcohol. He considers the reasons that once helped him stop—Rakel, Oleg, his work, perhaps even his father—and feels that none remains available to him. Opium offers a high he believes he can control. His gratitude toward Kaja Solness is edged with shame, but he treats pride as a luxury he cannot always afford. The rule is therefore bound to immediate pressure: avoiding alcohol becomes the priority, even when the substitute is itself a drug.

Control, routine, and the uncertain boundary

Harry’s sense of control is expressed through procedure. He uses a piece of opium no larger than a match head, warmed on a metal spoon fixed to the table; he collects the smoke under a glass and inhales it through a straw. His fingers do not tremble. He has monitored the degree of his dependence and regards himself as unusually disciplined: he can decide in advance how much alcohol to drink and stop at that limit, even when already drunk.

His history with opium complicates that confidence. In Hong Kong, he has sometimes gone a week or a fortnight without it, taking Paralgin forte instead. He knows the tablets do not relieve withdrawal; their importance is psychological, because they contain small amounts of morphine. Harry reasons that he is not dependent on intoxication in general and probably not on opium, but recognizes that the boundaries are fluid. In the moment of preparing the drug, he feels the imagined dogs of craving grow calmer because they know relief is coming. The ritual promises quiet, not freedom from the need for relief.

A rule under pressure

The contrast between Harry’s control and his vulnerability sharpens after he sits beside his father, Olav Hole, watching his breathing for an hour. Once home, he puts on one of his father’s Duke Ellington records and takes out the brown lump of opium. He leaves a message from Gunnar Hagen unheard, believing it concerns Mikael Bellman’s pressure to keep the investigators away from the murder case and Harry’s return to ordinary police duties. As that professional future closes in, he prepares to set out on a journey that begins that same evening. The scene places drug use beside bereavement and impending disruption without making either a simple explanation for it.

Abstinence in Hong Kong

Later, Harry’s account from Hong Kong describes a different phase. Working for Herman Kluit as a finder of debtors who have disappeared, he says the work is well paid and straightforward: he locates people but does not collect the debts. His imposing height and scar are often enough to make debtors hand over the money, and he rarely uses the server’s search engine in Germany. He identifies avoiding dope and alcohol as his secret, adding that he has managed it so far. The qualification preserves the rule’s provisional character: abstinence is an achievement in progress, not a guarantee. Letters from Gunnar Hagen and Oleg have reached him there, but he has put them in his jacket without deciding whether or when to read them; even at a distance, the ties to his former life remain present while he tries to maintain the new discipline.